Thai Political Foes Trade Accusations After Fatal Bomb Blast

Thai police stand outside an abandoned building where unidentified weapons were found near the scene of an explosion in Bangkok, Thailand, Jan. 17, 2014. Photographer: Piti A Sahakorn/LightRocket via Getty Images

Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Thai protesters accused the
government of having “blood on its hands” after one man died
and 37 people were injured in a bomb attack in Bangkok
yesterday, raising concern violence may increase before an
election scheduled for Feb. 2.

The blast near Chulalongkorn University in the center of
Bangkok targeted a rally led by Suthep Thaugsuban, a former
opposition party lawmaker who has called for Prime Minister
Yingluck Shinawatra’s government to be replaced by an unelected
council that would reform politics before restoring democracy.

“This government has blood on its hands for being behind
the blast,” Suthep said in a speech to supporters late
yesterday, and pledged to continue rallies in Bangkok today.
Suthep faces murder charges for overseeing a deadly crackdown on
protesters in 2010 when he was deputy prime minister.

Suthep’s critics have said his movement aims to provoke
violence to justify the intervention of the military in a repeat
of a 2006 coup that toppled Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin
Shinawatra, from power. Demonstrators have occupied government
ministries and blockaded seven of Bangkok’s busiest
intersections over the past five days without being challenged
by police, who are under orders from Yingluck to avoid clashes.

“There will definitely be more violence if the government
continues to play it cool like nothing is happening,” said Jade
Donavanik, dean of the Graduate School of Law at Bangkok’s Siam
University. “They need to find out who is behind the attack or
protesters will step up efforts to protect themselves. That will
eventually force the military to step in to act as the peace-keeper.”

United Front

Yingluck has faced more than two months of protests aimed
at erasing the influence of her brother. The government, police
and military are united in efforts to prevent the protests
turning violent and to ensure the election goes ahead, she told
a group of foreign reporters yesterday. Eight people have been
killed since the protests began Oct. 31.

An election is “the only way that we can hear the
people,” Yingluck said, while repeating that she is open to
talks with protesters. The Election Commission has urged the
government to defer the vote until May, saying the political
environment is too tense to proceed next month.

Allies of Thaksin have won the past five elections,
including two since his ouster, on support from rural northern
and northeastern regions. The protesters, mostly middle-class
Bangkokians and Democrat party supporters from Thailand’s
southern provinces, say Yingluck’s government is illegitimate
and run from abroad by Thaksin, who faces a two-year jail term
for corruption if he returns in a case he says was politically
motivated.

Government Response

The government rejected Suthep’s accusation that it was to
blame for the attack. Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul,
who is overseeing the response to the protests, questioned why
organizers changed the rally’s route to pass by the abandoned
buildings where the bombing occurred, and told reporters that he
feared similar incidents may happen as groups attempt to derail
the election.

Suthep’s former party, the Democrats, have lost every
national election over the past two decades and plan to boycott
next month’s poll.

Yingluck dissolved parliament on Dec. 9 and announced the
election, a day after the Democrats resigned en masse to join
the demonstrations, which at their peak drew more than 200,000
people. Protesters initially took to the streets in late October
to oppose a proposed amnesty law that they said would benefit
Yingluck’s brother, which the government later abandoned. The
demonstrations then morphed into a broader movement to erase
Thaksin’s political influence.

‘National Security’

Yesterday’s blast occurred as protesters marched from
Lumpini Park to their main demonstration site in the Pathumwan
shopping district. Thai man Prakong Choochan, 46, died,
according to a post on the website of Ramathibodi Hospital.

The injured were taken to four different hospitals, the
Bangkok Emergency Medical Center said on its website, without
giving details on their condition.

“There have been frequent violent incidents both day and
night, creating losses to both protesters and state officials,”
Winthai Suvaree, the deputy army spokesman, told reporters.
“These actions pose a great danger to national security.”

The SET Index dropped 0.5 percent to 1,295.41 yesterday.
The baht touched 32.655, the strongest level since Dec. 24,
before erasing gains following the grenade attack.

“Most investors have become used to the Thai political
turmoil,” Sompong Benjatapanun, an investment strategist at
Aira Securities Pcl in Bangkok, said by phone after the blast.
“It has become routine for Bangkok to have demonstrations, and
people as well as investors are used to it.”

Defusing Protests

Government officials postponed a plan yesterday to
negotiate directly with protesters blockading the Government
Complex in northern Bangkok because of concern clashes may
occur. Demonstrators gathered on Jan. 13 to block intersections
in Bangkok including in its central business districts.
Protester numbers, which tend to grow at weekends and after
office hours, have been declining each day.

The government is seeking to take back Bangkok by defusing
protests throughout the capital “soon,” Surapong said. “It is
about time that we start to do that.”

Surapong said supporters of Thaksin, known as red shirts,
will not confront rival protesters in Bangkok. “They try to
protest or show their support outside the Bangkok area, so I
think civil war will not happen here in Thailand,” he said.

More than 90 people were killed in 2010 when Suthep and
Abhisit Vejjajiva, who was prime minister at the time, set up
live fire zones and ordered the army to disperse pro-Thaksin red
shirts occupying Bangkok’s shopping district.

Coup Fears

“The prime minister has reiterated to security personnel
to exercise restraint at all times and has instructed them to
perform their duties in line with international standards as
well as not to use any weapons,” Surapong said.

The protesters have told civil servants and soldiers that
they must choose a side in the conflict. Their leaders’ refusal
to negotiate with Yingluck, and mounting legal cases against
government efforts to change the constitution and implement
spending plans, have stoked rumors that the military may stage a
coup, which the army chief hasn’t ruled out.

Yingluck couldn’t step aside completely even if she
resigned, Deputy Prime Minister Pongthep Thepkanjana told
reporters yesterday. Under the constitution “even if the prime
minister resigns, she still has to perform her duties until the
next government comes in,” Pongthep said.